The Responsibility to Protect: Uncovering the Achilles' heel of R2P-based intervention

Saskia Postema
University of Groningen

Abstract

R2P has been highly criticized after its use concerning the intervention in Libya in 2011. However, this paper shows that although the criticism from some states is justified, this does not negate the overall value of R2P. On the contrary, securitization theory shows that the identification of R2P’s necessity and relevance was successful in the case of Libya – it is the implementation i.e. mobilization that is still flawed and will need further demarcations and delimitations if the principle is to be used effectively in the future.

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